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Jun 7, 2006 1:36:30 GMT -5
Post by Pyro on Jun 7, 2006 1:36:30 GMT -5
[[Continued from thread 'Transit'][/i]
The Python looked at the Juggernaut.
The Juggernaut looked at the Python.
They both looked at Jane, then they looked at the semi-comatose John who was being alarmingly quiet on Python's shoulder.
"He's a pain in the ass," mused Python, "but he's not one of the worst. Can't say as I have any great desire to let him die just yet, what d'you think, dude?"
The Juggernaut muttered something less than complimentary about John's ability to get himself shot, added something about there being precious few of the Brotherhood left, and then added, for good measure, "She's bloody green!"
"Right you are then, miss," said Python, very carefully setting John down on the ground. The boy's eyes flared open almost immediately and he stared wildly around himself. He was tougher than he looked - or just very, very, very stubborn. "Make it fast," added the Python. "And don't even think about trying to turn us in."
He bared his fangs, which started to drip with the naturally-occuring venom that had given him his name.
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Jane
Natural
It Ain't Easy
Posts: 174
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Jun 7, 2006 9:40:47 GMT -5
Post by Jane on Jun 7, 2006 9:40:47 GMT -5
Well, this was awkward. Okay, so it hadn't been the smoothest entrance, no stepping alarmingly from around corners while her shadow was cast on the opposite wall (to her knowledge, but it was too drizzly for shadows today anyway), but still. She was offering to patch up their fallen comrade... or somesuch, anyway. They could make an effort.
Of course, bank robbers were probably not known for their social skills. Then again, neither was Jane, particularly.
"He's a pain the ass, but he's not one of the worst. Can't say as I have any great desire to let him die just yet, what d'you think, dude?"
How tender. Obviously they were brothers in the soul. Soul brothers. Something.
The other mutant muttered for a while, none of which Jane really picked up by virtue of her still trying not to pass out from doing the first running she'd really done in about two months, except for catching something about a Mrgphdhood, but that could be anything.
"She's bloody green!"
"Yes," Jane said, trying to be affable. "Yes, in fact. Ten points. Listen, you can die from shoulder wounds like that, you know, and I was just trying to -"
"Right you are then, miss."
Heavens be praised! At least one of them was mildly sensible. "Thank - you," Jane said, faltering halfway through, wondering if she ought to be thanking fugitives for the chance to patch up a gunshot wound she hadn't, in fact, instigated.
She sank to the ground along with the boy, propping one of her knees up and arranging the kid so that he leaned against it, trying to get a good angle without sticking him facedown on the disgusting alley floor. She peeled back the collar of his shirt carefully, ripping it along the seam - it was already wet with blood, which made it easier going, if a little disgusting.
"Make it fast. And don't even think about trying to turn us in."
Jane looked up to see him drooling angrily at her.
"Charming," she murmured. "I'm sure you're very threatening but I am actually trying to do something here, if you don't mind. Do you have a pen or stick or anything? Or a knife to get the bullet out? I can go without, but you'll have to get it out of him sooner or later and the pen'll just make the tourniquet easier."
Street medicine - safe territory. Jane pressed her scarf to the wound itself, trying to get the blood up so she could see what she was doing, wishing the shot had been somewhere else so that she could do a real tourniquet, but this would have to do. He wasn't bleeding enough for the shot to have done anything more than nick the artery, so that would close by itself, but the tendon probably had a good chunk missing...
"This is going to hurt," she warned the kid before removing her gloves, tilting him forward a little and gently sticking a finger into the wound, trying to figure out the damage. It was deep, for a shoulder thing, but shoulder things couldn't actually go too terribly deep, so she'd be able to get the bullet out with a pocketknife, no trouble. "It's taken a chunk out of your tendon," she told the kid on the off-chance he'd still be cognizant, "and it's hit the bone, but not the artery. Just don't try to move your arm while I do this, all right?"
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Jun 7, 2006 11:39:44 GMT -5
Post by Pyro on Jun 7, 2006 11:39:44 GMT -5
"This is going to hurt."
The words filtered through the haze of pain that had become rather central to Pyro's world. What did she mean, it was going to hurt, it already hu...
She was sticking her fingers inside the bullet wound.
That was...
It was...
Oh.
My.
God.
John let rip with a yell of absolute agony and almost as immediately, the Python slapped a hand over his mouth to shut him up. "We're in hiding, you stupid idiot," he said. John turned his eyes up to look at Python and nodded weakly.
"It's taken a chunk out of your tendon and it's hit the bone, but not the artery. Just don't try to move your arm while I do this, all right?"
From behind Python's hand, John said "Mmmpsdfl, adkjw."
Curiously, the Python seemed to understand this. "Yeah, I reckon so, too. I got a knife, miss, here." He flipped a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket. It was old and had seen better days. "Hey, Pyro, sterilise the blade for me, would ya? Make yourself useful instead of fucking up, eh?"
A look of abject fury came into the boy's eyes, but with supreme effort, he twitched the non-damaged arm slightly. A small flame came into being, defying the drizzle and he willed it up in strength and intensity a little. Python held the blade in the heat and then handed it to the girl.
"I hope you know what you're doin', girly," he said, airily. "'cos this kid here is needed for important things back where we come from, you get my drift?" He took his hand from John's mouth. "Breathe, kid, because any second now, you're gonna wanna scream something good."
John sucked in a deep breath. He was feeling light-headed and woozy now from the blood loss, but still unconsciousness refused to come.
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Juggers
Natural
Don't you know who I am?
Posts: 218
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Jun 7, 2006 13:58:04 GMT -5
Post by Juggers on Jun 7, 2006 13:58:04 GMT -5
The Juggernaut stood by and watched impassively. He had seen gunshot wounds before, it was nothing new. What was more interesting was that the young Pyro was proving to be a lot tougher than he believed. Having been dropped by a single head butt during the battle at Alcatraz Cain had doubted the kid was up to much. Right now he was proving otherwise.
He turned his attention to the girl attending to the injury. She was, quite obviously, a mutant. The fact that she had followed three very obvious criminals through a wall and into a rough back alley revealed much. She must be sympathetic to the mutant cause regardless of legalities AND have the balls ... uh ... sand to have the strength of her convictions.
And she wasn't squeamish Cain noted. Respect went up a couple of notches.
Still, that was no reason to go trusting someone - she could just be some mutant do-gooder who couldn't bear to see someone suffer. There were an awful lot of empty-headed bleeding hearts around these days.
"So," he said while she worked, "you got a name?"
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Jane
Natural
It Ain't Easy
Posts: 174
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Escape
Jun 7, 2006 17:54:31 GMT -5
Post by Jane on Jun 7, 2006 17:54:31 GMT -5
Screaming like a little girl. That was new. How on earth was he still conscious?
One of the others slapped a hand across his mouth, and she glared at him. He was allowed to scream. She'd stuck his fingers in a bullet wound.
"We're in hiding, you stupid idiot."
But then there was that. They'd have to move in a few minutes, then, before people started shuffling out of their apartments to peer at who was being murdered in the alley.
"Mmmpsdfl, adkjw."
"Yeah, I reckon so, too. I got a knife, miss, here."
Jane reached to take the blade with a nod, but Python held it back.
"Hey, Pyro, sterilise the blade for me, would ya? Make yourself useful instead of fucking up, eh?"
"Be nice," she said sharply. If there was ever a reason to go easy on anyone, a gunshot wound in an extremely painful place was that reason.
Jane took the knife from Python after the boy had sterilized it, his face contorted in obvious effort, and tilted it into the light - it'd work. Maybe a char line if you really looked, but she wasn't going to complain.
"I hope you know what you're doin', girly, 'cos this kid here is needed for important things back where we come from, you get my drift?"
Jane huffed in annoyance. "Will you please stop being so bloody pompous and just shut -"
"Breathe, kid, because any second now, you're gonna wanna scream something good."
"Oh, don't do that, you'll frighten him," Jane said, then carefully inserted the knife into the wound, trying her hardest not to touch the sides. Her grip tightened on his shoudler itself, trying to brace him against the inevitable flinch. She wouldn't blame him for it if he did; she just hoped he wouldn't make her stab him though the remains of the tendon, because that would be Bad.
She found the bullet easily enough, avoiding the tendons and ligaments and bone and general what-have-you of the average human (or mutant) shoulder, nudging the blade alongside it, feeling for the rounded base and trying to concentrate despite the fact that someone much, much taller than she was currently staring at her.
"So, you got a name?"
At least he wasn't being silent. That was a little scarier than staring and talking.
"Jane," she said, hoping it didn't sound like she was giving a fake name. A lot of people thought she was. No one really got named Jane anymore, apparently. "Jane Martin."
Probably not the best of plans to give her surname, but what were they going to do - turn her in for aiding and abetting the perpetrators of a bank robbery?
"What about you? You boys got names?"
She pushed in a little further and managed to wiggle the tip underneath it with hopefully little pain, but the gentle tapping noise against the bone was kind of gross, and she couldn't avoid a little nick into the muscle when she got the little knife underneath the bullet itself. With a careful flick and then a gentle push, she guided the bullet halfway out, plucking it from the hole with her other hand.
"You still there, kid?" she asked, hoping for his sake that he wasn't. She picked up her scarf from where she'd let it fall across her other leg and wrapped it quickly around the wound, which was bleeding afresh from her nick and without the bullet to impede the flow, but she could staunch it now that the pellet wasn't going to do any more damage. Pressing it to the wound before tying it around, she flicked her fingers at a bit of grass pushing through the pavement, which blossomed into an orange flower, its seed-pod inflating as the petals dropped off. Jane picked it carefully and scored the surface with with the knife, a milky fluid oozing through the surface.
"Open your mouth," she told the kid, hoping he could still hear her - unconscious bodies in pain sometimes clenched, and she didn't want to pry open his jaw. "It's opium. Not ready, really, but it's the best I can do for the pain."
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Jun 7, 2006 18:06:11 GMT -5
Post by Pyro on Jun 7, 2006 18:06:11 GMT -5
The gods above only knew how it was that Pyro managed to remain conscious throughout the whole procedure, his face twisted in extreme pain and horror at the sound of the scraping bone. When she finally removed the bullet and bandaged his shoulder up, he finally let go of the pride and began shaking, shock beginning to set in.
"Open your mouth," he heard and still shaking turned his head a little to look at his rescuer. "It's opium. Not ready, really, but it's the best I can do for the pain."
Oh, god, yes.
John opened his mouth and practically guzzled back the drug, clinging onto Jane with his good arm as though she was some sort of steady rock in a tumultuous tidal wave of chaos. It took effect surprisingly quickly and she could feel the anxiety and tension start to flow out of him before a stupid grin plastered itself on his face.
"I got shot," he said, and giggled slightly. "Bang, boom."
Python rolled his eyes.
"You had to go and get him stoned, didn't ya?"
With a great deal of effort, John looked up at the man, the stupid grin still all over his face. "I got shot," he said, again. "An' d'you know what, Python? D'you know what? C'mere." He beckoned the older man to lean down, which Python did, a long-suffering expression on his face.
Python had been one of the first to accept John's leadership with good grace, seeing the sort of enthusiasm and determination in the kid that he felt was good step towards keeping the Brotherhood going. As a consequence, and despite his better judgement, he'd found himself growing almost fond of the kid, stupid and reckless or not. He leaned in towards Pyro with great patience.
"D'you know what?"
"What, Pyro?"
"Gettin' shot really, really, really hurts."
And finally, mercifully, the boy slid into unconsciousness, the grin still on his face, a thin trickle of spittle running down his chin which Python wiped away absently.
"Tell you what, you dumb assed kid. Getting shot ain't gonna hurt half as much as your face will hurt when I punch you for being a FUCKWIT once you wake up," said Python, good naturedly. "He's Pyro, I'm Python and the big guy is the Juggernaut."
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Jane
Natural
It Ain't Easy
Posts: 174
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Jun 7, 2006 18:22:39 GMT -5
Post by Jane on Jun 7, 2006 18:22:39 GMT -5
Thank God - the shaking. Finally. Why were boys stupid? Why wouldn't they just slide blissfully into unconsciousness when people dug around in their shoulders? It helped get the drugs down them and everything, but still.
"Easy," she said, slipping the opium into his mouth and hopefully onto his tongue, trying not to get blood in his mouth, because that would be gross - kind of a hard maneuver, though, since it currently drenched her hands and had gotten all over her arms up to the elbows in varying dripping patterns.
At least the black didn't show the stain, right?
And evidently opium worked a lot faster when fresh, even if he hadn't smoked it. His face slackened quickly, and Jane tied off the bandage at long last, doing without the crank that would make it a true tourniquet, not that it would be in the first place, but it would work.
"I got shot. Bang, boom."
She wiped her hands off on the clean bits left on her ex-scarf; she definitely wouldn't be getting that thing back, not that she'd want it after some kid had bled all over it. "Are you sure he's important to big things back home?" she asked dubiously. Maybe it was about six times the usual dosage of the forefather of morphine, but still. Kind of a lightweight.
"You had to go and get him stoned, didn't ya?"
"Would you prefer screaming?" Jane asked, opening and closing her hands, grimacing at their stickiness. Ew ew ew. At least it wasn't something that was going to make her sick - the blood might actually boost her protein.
That was not a healthy thought.
"I got shot. An' d'you know what, Python? D'you know what? C'mere."
Jane leaned back as Python leaned down patiently, trying to be accomodating, but this was really taking the hospitality of her lap too far.
"What, Pyro?"
"Gettin' shot really, really, really hurts."
Finally. She almost dug for her handkerchief for his drool before Python wiped it away and she remembered that her hands were still a little icky.
"Tell you what, you dumb assed kid. Getting shot ain't gonna hurt half as much as your face will hurt when I punch you for being a FUCKWIT once you wake up."
"Er," Jane said, not entirely sure if that was a joke.
"He's Pyro, I'm Python and the big guy is the Juggernaut."
"Oh - hi," Jane said, trying to figure out how to stand up without shoving "Pyro" (?) onto the cold, hard paved ground. "Pyro, Python and... Juggernaut. Got it."
Silly names. Silly, silly, silly names.
"Lovely to meet you," she said, managing to get one leg out from under the kid, which made extracting the other easier. She let him down onto the street easily, careful of the shoulder, before standing up and scrubbing her hands nervously on the front of her pants.
"Do you have anywhere safe to take him?" she asked. "Only you're obviously on the lam now. And do you have anything to give him? I can - "
The poppy grew further up the wall, vining through the brick in a fashion a real one wouldn't, several more flowers sprouting along its length and the petals pulling back to reveal more oversized pods. "You just have to scratch them so the goo comes out, like I did, only don't give him too much. I'm pretty sure it's addictive."
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Juggers
Natural
Don't you know who I am?
Posts: 218
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Jun 8, 2006 15:37:49 GMT -5
Post by Juggers on Jun 8, 2006 15:37:49 GMT -5
"THE Juggernaut," Cain corrected. As far as knew he was still the only one, "it's an abbreviation see." He nodded sagely.
The Juggernaut turned his attention to the rapidly expanding monster-poppy and ripped a handful of pods from it.
"He ain't havin' any more of that right now," Cain sniffed and wrinkled his nose in distaste; he didn't approve of drugs, but then this was sort of an emergency.
"An' no, we ain't got anywhere close that's not through a line of coppers." He cursed the frailties of his fellow mutants. If only they were a bit more resilient, like that tin fellow in the X-Men they'd be flying. But, he reflected futilely, they weren’t.
He had, however, been in worse spots.
"Unless," he raised an eyebrow, "you got somewhere in mind?"
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Jane
Natural
It Ain't Easy
Posts: 174
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Jun 8, 2006 18:02:47 GMT -5
Post by Jane on Jun 8, 2006 18:02:47 GMT -5
"THE Juggernaut. It's an abbreviation see."
Quite frankly, Jane was surprised that someone who did the Hulk Smash on such a regular basis knew what an abbreviationb was, but then again, he evidently knew was a Juggernaut was, so maybe there was more to him than "raa kill."
Where had she heard Juggernaut before? The name was niggling at the back of her head now. Well, whatever. Whoever he was, he was ripping apart her poppy. (Jerk.)
"He ain't havin' any more of that right now."
"I was going to tell you to save it for later," she murmured, feeling like a petulant seventh-grader caught with candy in class. Not that she'd ever actually been in the seventh grade and in a classroom at the same time. Green kids generally got homeschooled.
"An' no, we ain't got anywhere close that's not through a line of coppers. Unless you got somewhere in mind?"
Don't you raise your eyebrow at me, punk. This was a satisfying thing to think, but Jane was not quite dumb enough to say it aloud. He was, after all, approximately four and a half times bigger than she was.
"I..." Harbor fugitives? Potentially kill kid? Decisions, decisions... Jane went with her gut. If she was hanged for a sheep, she could be hanged for a goat as well. Or something like that. She was mixing her metaphors again. "Yeah. My flat's about three blocks - " she pointed down the left side of another dingy alley that crossed their dingy alley - "that way. As long as you think you can get up a fire escape that's older than God, you can crash there for a few hours, anyway, maybe overnight. I'm not registered here as a mutant - long story - but I've been there for a few months, so they might come looking in a day or two, since I'm pretty sure most banks have cameras."
She shifted her weight to one side, pondering. She wasn't registered on her visa, but how many people knew where she lived? How many of them would turn her in? Well, if they needed the money...
She'd deal with that when the time came. They did, after all, have a Juggernaut on their side.
Where did I hear that name? And Pyro... that sounded familiar as well. The adrenaline was finally wearing off, though not completely yet, so names were beginning to mean more than just what someone was called. She was sure she'd seen those names somewhere. She just didn't know where.
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Juggers
Natural
Don't you know who I am?
Posts: 218
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Jun 8, 2006 18:19:21 GMT -5
Post by Juggers on Jun 8, 2006 18:19:21 GMT -5
"It'll do," Cain replied simply.
He wasn't so sure about a fire escape though. If it was as old as green-girl claimed it might cause some difficulties. Where the Juggernaut was concerned there were some planes that had difficulty.
He stuffed his collection of poppy-pods into a pocket and plucked Pyro up from the ground, cradling him under the non-safe-encumbered arm.
"Why do I always end up luggin' your beat up arse all over creation?" Pyro mumbled something unintelligible that had something to do with cookies and earmuffs. Clearly the dope was still doing its job.
He glanced meaningfully at Python, "don't this just remind you of our last little bust up?"
Python grinned ruefully, "not as messy," he replied.
"Heh, you got that right. Anyways ... uh ... your place it is!"
The Juggernaut grinned as if everything in the world was alright.
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Jane
Natural
It Ain't Easy
Posts: 174
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Jun 8, 2006 18:38:55 GMT -5
Post by Jane on Jun 8, 2006 18:38:55 GMT -5
Continued in "Home"
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